


Misunderstandings

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [160]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort, Comfort Reading, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, POV Loki (Marvel), Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:08:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27583847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: When you’re having a bad day, Loki tries to steer clear of you so as to avoid making things worse. But when he tries to trick you into joining him for dinner, everything goes wrong.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [160]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 10
Kudos: 166





	Misunderstandings

**Author's Note:**

> I recognize that this may not strike you as particularly fluffy. There’s not a lot of cuddling or doting that happens in this fic. But I don’t know. I am a sucker for reading about “myself” as seen through Loki’s eyes, and one of my newest guilty pleasures is reading stories in which the reader is misunderstood and hurt by someone, who then feels very, very guilty. I probably won’t make a habit out of posting stories like this, but…every once in a while, I like them. I hope it’s alright for you, too.

Unbeknownst to you, Loki had been watching you all morning. He cringed for you when he heard you smack your forehead on the corner of the cupboard door while you were making your toast. He saw the way you’d clenched your hand around your mug of coffee after your very first sip and could only assume that you’d burnt your tongue. He’d seen the way your brow furrowed, the way your face froze into something like a scowl, as you did what you could on your work laptop. He’d tried to distract you here and there, hoping to put any semblance of a smile onto your face, but each time he’d done that, you’d snapped at him. For you, he held his tongue. This whole ordeal—lockdown, illness, sweeping changes in the intricacies of your daily life—certainly was not easy for you. And he was well aware of the fact that, for years, he’d been similarly tough to live with. So he did not speak to you with any venom, and he allowed your temper to slide right off his back.

It helped, a little, that he saw how your face grew a little dark every time you snapped at him. He watched as you looked away and drew your lower lip in between your teeth. It was guilt. By now he was getting rather good at reading your emotions on your face, and this was unmistakably guilt. You didn’t want to be acting this way any more than he wanted you to be, either. He slipped out of the room, then, intending to leave you in peace, and, though it was incredibly difficult, he managed not to touch you or lean in for a kiss as he did.

This crankiness of yours, it threw him off. Make no mistake: he’d seen you in the throes of your anxieties, when panic attacks stole your breath and irrational thoughts raced through your mind so loud he could almost hear them. And he’d seen you laid low by the cruel things you thought about yourself. He hated the way your mind could torment you. Whenever he saw you in a state like that, you did always put up a sort of resistance to being comforted, but you always eventually let yourself melt into his arms. But he wasn’t sure what to do for you today. Whether you wanted to or not, he could not imagine this mood of yours allowing you to take comfort in his arms the way you so often did.

He distracted himself with whatever little tasks he could find. Though it would have been absolutely unthinkable to his younger self, he’d discovered that he didn’t mind doing the mundane little chores of life in Midgard. They left a lot to be desired, of course, especially compared to being able to tear through the realm on horseback or tussle with Thor until the both of them were covered in mud and dirt, but there was something to be said for the meditative act of folding a basket of clean laundry. Maybe it was the quiet thrill he got when he saw his own clothing mixed in with yours. Sometimes a pair of your knickers would cling to one of his shirts, and that made him smile to himself.

You worked all day. A few times—a precious few times—he heard you get up and pad into the kitchen, but you never stayed long. It wasn’t hard to imagine what you were doing, especially each time the tap came on. Water. You were getting water each time. You did not touch the refrigerator or the cupboards with your snacks. Concern was a cool knot in his stomach, but he kept himself hidden away. If he tried to convince you to eat something, your stubborn nature all but guaranteed that you’d continue to refuse. And if he continued to press you on it, to the point of provoking an argument, he couldn’t be sure that you’d eat afterwards, since fighting tended to steal away your appetite.

Though perhaps provoking an argument wasn’t the worst idea. It’d give you a chance to exorcise whatever demons were haunting you, and surely it was always healthier to give them a voice and let them die in the air rather than to try and smother them inside your own head. At this point, he had enough faith in the two of you not to worry that he could cause a rift. He knew that he would not lose you over a shouting match. You’d already had your fair share of those. He did rather like the thrill of crushing his lips against yours at the end of those fights, when much of the anger was gone but the adrenaline still remained. It was wrong, he knew, but he liked having an excuse to use more of his full strength on you. You fought hard in the wake of an argument, but he also saw the way your eyes would get a little darker when you tried to free yourself from his grasp, only to realize that you couldn’t. It felt almost like a blessing to be able to feel the way your muscles would loosen when he finally brought you to climax. You would cling to him and howl out his name and it was just...cathartic.

Still, he didn’t relish the idea of having you angry with him. Maybe he was going soft. There was a time where he would have laughed—and then perhaps spat—directly in the face of anyone who deigned to tell him that someday he’d allow a Midgardian to tie him up in knots like this. But there was something in your face when you smiled at him, something in your eyes, that had placed him directly under your spell, and surely there was no faulting him for being bewitched. He just wished he could make things better for you. He wished he could make you smile right now and convince you to quit working early so he could pull you into his arms.

The afternoon stretched into evening. He’d done just about all there was to do in the closed-off rooms of the small apartment you shared with him, so he ventured into the kitchen. _He_ was hungry; you had to be _starving_. He stole a quick glance into the sitting room, and there you were, curled into yourself on the couch with your laptop on your knees, glaring at the screen. His heart squeezed in his chest. What he wouldn’t give to soothe that look off of your face. But he ducked out of sight again before he could draw your attention. It wasn’t about what he wanted.

He made dinner. On a good day, on a regular day, you would have come to see what he was doing as soon as he’d made enough noise to attract your attention. You hated allowing him to cook for you. No matter how many times he reassured you that he _wanted_ to, that he enjoyed cooking so that he could feed you and nourish your body, he had yet to fully convince you. If he took care to be especially quiet tonight, well, surely that was only because he didn’t want to distract you further, not because he wanted to cook in secret.

It wasn’t hard to make something he knew you’d like. You were so effusive with your praise, after all, at least once you’d gotten over the guilt of not being the one to serve him, and so he knew what brought you comfort. So he cooked, and he hummed quietly to himself, and he tried not to think about the fight the two of you would have if you tried to insist that you weren’t hungry.

Just as he was putting the finishing touches on everything, an idea came to him. It was inspired by an old piece of advice he’d heard, once—and certainly not a very flattering piece of advice. Old Midgardian farmers, trying to take livestock to market, often struggled to make the stubborn animals follow their lead. Rather, they would tie a piece of string around the animal’s back leg and pull as though to drag the creature in the opposite direction. Bullheadedness would prevail, and the creature would march itself straight in the direction the farmer actually wanted.

You were not livestock. He would die before he ever dreamed of taking you to market. But...it gave him an idea. He stuck his head through the doorway and said your name to get your attention.

“I’m going to eat now,” he said in a cool voice. “I’d like to be alone. I’ll let you know when I’ve finished.”

He didn’t wait to see your face. He didn’t need to see you to know how your brow would furrow, how your mouth would set into a hard line as you made sense of his words. It was a familiar expression, one that was at once threatening and utterly adorable. He did not breathe as he set out dishes on the table and lit a single candle. He did not watch the doorway as he dished out food into both places. He did not snicker as he took his place at the table and waited to hear your footsteps coming towards him.

Something like dread, cool and slimy, coiled inside him when you still did not join him. The sitting room was deadly silent. Could he even hear the clacking of your keyboard? What, exactly, were you waiting for? He thought he’d set things up perfectly to bring you running to join him, and now dinner was getting cold. He took a single bite, but it might as well have been ash in his mouth. 

What were you _waiting_ for?

He sat there for what had to have been at least twenty minutes. The food had long since cooled, and you still had not made an appearance. Just as he was about to get up and go look in on you, he felt your presence in the doorway. He looked up—and his heart shattered in his chest.

Precious thing, you’d been crying. Your eyes were red and, though you’d done your best to wipe the tears off of your cheeks, he could see the way the light caught in one that you missed. He stood up immediately, without thinking about it, and took several large steps towards you, but you backed away from him quickly and whispered a ragged apology. Were you frightened of him? He reached to take your hand—not easy, with how you had your arms crossed protectively in front of you—and folded it in both of his.

“Darling, what is it?” Whatever had happened that had kept you from dinner, it looked like it was awful.

“I’m sorry, Loki,” you mumbled again. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t know if you were done yet, so—” A tear dripped down your cheek and you tried to pull your hand away to swipe it away, but he got there first. You were still trying to back away from him, and even when he put his arm around you to pull you in closer, you held yourself so rigid. His stomach dropped. His plan had not worked in the slightest. Rather than inspiring defiance and spite, he had _hurt_ you. He should have known better. After all this time, _he should have known better._

He held you tightly and hid his face against the top of your head. Precious, darling thing, how could he have been so wrong? He heard the way you had to fight your tears and felt the sobs that threatened to wrack your chest. He sang your name to you, along with all the other soft names he called you in your most private of moments. In the past, he’d been known for his way with words, his silver tongue, and this was the only way he could think to show you how he felt.

“I made a terrible mistake,” he finally heard himself say, and lifted your chin to meet your gaze. “I thought—you’ve been angry all day, so I thought you’d only fight me if I told you that dinner was ready. I wanted you to join me. I will _always_ want you to join me.”

“I’m sorry, I know I’ve been a bitch.” He tried to shush you at that, but you ignored him and continued on. “I don’t feel good.” Your voice was so small. In that moment, you sounded so fragile and vulnerable, and still he was the one crumbling to pieces inside. You tried to pull away. If he was less upset with himself, he might have let you, but he couldn’t bear the thought of being away from you for a single second. He held you tight against him and gently rocked from one foot to the other, caressing your back all the while. It took some time, but slowly, something like peace grew between you.

“What can I do?” He spoke almost directly into your hair because he was so unwilling to pull away.

You shook your head softly. The tiniest shred of panic stabbed through him—what if you said you just wanted to go to bed after all this?—but you put that to rest easily when you tightened your arms around him. “I’m hungry...can I eat with you?”

He swept you into the tiny kitchen almost before he could process the words that you’d said. He guided you into your seat and whisked your food away to put it into the microwave. He didn’t really like that—it never tasted quite right re-heated in that strange box—but, after all, wasn’t it his fault that the food was cold in the first place? If it were up to him, he would have settled you directly in his lap and fed you himself while apologizing and promising never to make you feel unwanted again. But you sat carefully in your own seat across the table from him and ventured a cautious smile. He’d throw himself at your feet, if he could. If he didn’t know how uncomfortable it made you, he’d kneel there and touch you and apologize to you in every language he could speak. Perhaps you saw that in his face as he sat, because you looked away a little too quickly, but then reached out to take his hand. Everything inside him seemed drawn to you, pulled close to you like a magnet.

Conversation was a little stilted at first, and rather awkward, but it got better over time. And later, when the leftovers had been put away and the dishes temporarily abandoned in the sink, he got to sink down onto the sofa with you and pull you into his lap so you could press your forehead against his and share your body’s warmth with him. And there was no better way to spend an evening.


End file.
